Her 24-Hour Protector Read Online Free PDF Page A

shaft of heat shot clean to his groin and Lex’s breath strangled in his chest. For some reason, Harold Rothchild’s youngest daughter was really working him.
    She was trapping him with her magic, and she knew it. And his lust was beginning to feed on itself like a forest fire. Lex was going to have one hell of a time trying to put this carnal genie that had been awakened back into its little bottle.
    She moved her mouth toward his, brushing her red lips over his, allowing the barest tip of her tongue to enter his mouth and touch the inner seam of his top lip.
    Lex’s world swirled darkly. He opened his mouth, unable to stop himself from tasting her.
    And suddenly, another camera flashed, capturing the moment.
    Lex blinked, shocked instantly back to reality. He cursed viciously.
    He could just see the headlines tomorrow: Half-Naked FBI Agent in Charge of High-Profile Vegas Homicide Locks Lips on the Dance Floor with Victim’s Younger Sister.
    He was toast.
    He had to get the hell out of here—and fast.
    Lex lived for his job. The Bureau, his “kids,” the old Washoe County sheriff who’d pulled him back from the edge when he was being bounced from one foster home to the other— those things were his family. And he had no intention of blowing it all over a woman.
    Especially this woman.
    He grabbed her wrist firmly, his jaw tense as he escorted herbrusquely toward the doors. The teeming, dancing crowd of bodies parting in front of him like the Red Sea. He ushered her out into the hall where it was quieter.
    The doors shut sullenly behind them.
    “You set me up, Jenna. Why?” he demanded. “Did you do this to compromise the case? What’s in it for you? ” The direct approach, all business, was the only way for Lex to steer himself clear of his own libido right now.
    She blinked those impossibly big, sparkling eyes. “I had no idea you were on the case, Lex.”
    “You’d have to be living under a rock not to know!”
    “I don’t follow all that—” she waved her hand dismissively “—technical stuff.”
    He cupped her jaw, lifted it up. “Don’t give me the bimbo spiel, Ms. Rothchild. I suspect you have more intellect stashed in your pretty little head than Mr. Investment Banker with the rose wilting in his teeth back there. What game are you playing? What’re you trying to achieve here? If you’re trying to mess with this case because you have something to hide, I promise you now, I will find it.”
    She swallowed, pupils darkening reflexively. Heat ribboned through him.
    “Look,” he said, his voice coming out an octave lower. “It’s up to you what you do with that quarter million, but I’m outta here.”
    “You still owe me a date, Lex.”
    “I owe you nothing, Jenna.”
    “If you want that money to go to charity,” she said with a defiant tilt of her head, “you’ll spend a few hours with me.”
    He glared at her. “An ultimatum? Oh, that’s rich.”
    “We had a deal.”
    “What we have, Jenna, is a conflict of interest.”
    “Not to my mind. And if you don’t play, agent, I don’t give.”She made a moue, and all he could think about was kissing those full, pouty red lips of hers.
    Lex swallowed against the dryness in his throat. And before reengaging his brain, the words came out of his mouth. “One date. That’s it. The money goes to my kids. Then this is done. Over. Capiche? ”
    “What ever made you think I wanted—” her eyes teased slowly over his bare chest “—anything more?” she whispered. “I did this purely for charity, Lex.”
    He muttered something unholy under his breath. Then spun, and stalked off toward the hotel lobby.
    Jenna watched him go, admiring the view. His dark-blond hair glinted under the pinprick lights, and his neck was taut. The power in his shoulders transferred with each stride down the corded muscles of his broad back into the waistband of his tailored pants—pants that had been expertly cut to accommodate the rock-hard thighs she’d